1982). Families who are able to redefine a stressor event more positively (i.e., reframe it) appear to be better able to cope and adapt. By redefining, families are able to (a) clarify the issues, hardships, and tasks to render them more manageable and responsive to problem-solving efforts; (b) decrease the intensity of the emotional burdens associated with stressors; and (c) encourage the family unit to carry on with its fundamental tasks of promoting individual member’s social and emotional development (Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013; McCubbin & Patterson, 1985).
Additional factors which could influence families’ perceptions in a stressful situation include spirituality, values and beliefs, culture, and stage of the family life cycle (e.g., Emmen et al., 2013; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013; Walsh, 2013a; Yeh et al., 2006). As noted earlier, there has been an increased emphasis on the role of spirituality, beliefs, and faith on family stress. Boss (2002, 2006) discussed several cases where a strong sense of spirituality results in a more positive attitude, hope, and optimism when families are confronted with a stressful situation. Faith can be a major coping mechanism promoting family resilience (Martin, Distelberg, & Elahad, 2015) and causing families to turn to their religious institutions and communities more than cognitive problem solving (Walsh, 2013a). Of course, spirituality can be experienced within or outside formal religious institutions. Regardless of the source, spiritual associations can bring a sense of meaning, wholeness, and connection with others. For example, religious communities provide guidelines for living and scripted ways to make major life transitions, as well as congregational support in times of need (Walsh, 2006, 2013a).
The belief system or value orientation of families may also influence their perceptions of stressful events. Families with a mastery orientation may believe they can solve any problem and control just about anything that could happen to them. For example, a recent study found that adolescent mastery orientation served to increase health promotion behaviors in teens despite family stress (Kwon & Wickrama, 2014). In contrast, families with a fatalistic orientation are more likely to believe that everything is determined by a higher power, therefore, all events are predetermined and not under their control. This orientation could be a barrier to coping because it encourages passivity, and active coping strategies have been found to be more effective than passive strategies (e.g., Boss, 2002; Yeh et al., 2006). The influence of belief and value orientations can also be mediated by culture (McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013; Yeh et al., 2006).
Culture influences the family stress process through (1) values or value orientations and (2) minority and immigrant status—both of which influence perceptions, coping strategies, and resources (Emmen et al., 2013; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Yeh et al., 2006; Walsh, 2013a). Researchers of individual models of coping have made some strides in identifying how cultural values and social norms influence coping strategies. Scholars in this area have asserted that coping is not dualistic (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) with only action oriented coping strategies resulting in positive outcomes, but rather cultural context also plays a part (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Lam & Zane, 2004; Yeh et al., 2006). While taking direct action (e.g., confronting others, standing up for oneself) is a preferred and effective strategy in individualist cultural contexts; in collectivistic contexts, the emphasis on group harmony and interdependence leads individuals to enact coping strategies that focus on changing themselves to meet the needs of the group, instead of attempting to change the situation (Lam & Zane, 2004; Yeh et al., 2006). Scholars examining the cultural context of stress and family stress have focused on models that account for the depth and complexity of cultural and ethnic influences on family systems related to family stress and resilience. For example, McCubbin and McCubbin (2013) created the Relational and Resilience Theory of Ethnic Family Systems, which was designed to identify and validate competencies among ethnic/cultural families that facilitate successful adaption in the context of family stress. Similarly, McNeil Smith and Landor (2018) developed the sociocultural family stress model to help better understand the experience of family stress within racially and ethnically diverse families (see James, Barrios, Roy, & Lee, Chapter 12 in this volume).
The stage of the family life cycle can also influence a family’s perceptions during a stressful event. Where the family currently exists in the family life cycle, points to the variation in structure, composition, interaction (between family members as well as between the family and the outside culture), and resources of that family (Henry et al., 2015; Price et al., 2000; Walsh, 2013b). Consequently, families at different stages of the life cycle vary in their response to stressful situations. This is particularly relevant as families move from one stage of development to another during normative transitions. It is during these periods of change (a child is born, children leave home, a family member dies) that families are likely to experience high levels of stress as they adjust rules, roles, and patterns of behavior (Aldous, 1996; Carter & McGoldrick, 2005). This stress is also affected by whether the transition is “on time” or “off time” as well as expected or unexpected (Rodgers & White, 1993). In general, off time (e.g., a child dies before a parent dies) and unexpected (a family member is diagnosed with a terminal illness) transitions create periods of greater stress. The significance of this stress could, at least partially, be attributed to the family members’ perception of the stressful situation as being overwhelming or unfair.
Stress and Crisis
According to systems theory, stress represents a change in the family’s steady state. Stress is the response of the family system to the demands experienced as a result of a stressor event. Stress itself is not inherently bad—it becomes problematic when the degree of stress in the family system reaches a level at which the family becomes disrupted or individual members become dissatisfied or display physical or emotional symptoms. The degree of stress ultimately depends on the family’s definition of the stressor event as well as the adequacy of the family’s resources to meet the demands of the change associated with the stressor event.
The terms stress and crisis have been used inconsistently in the literature. In fact, many researchers have failed to make a distinction between the two. Boss (1988, 2006) makes a useful distinction as she defines crisis as (a) a disturbance in the equilibrium that is overwhelming, (b) pressure that is so severe, or (c) change that is so acute that the family system is blocked and incapacitated. When a family is in a crisis state, at least for a time, it does not function adequately. Family boundaries are no longer maintained, customary roles and tasks are no longer performed, and family members are no longer functioning at optimal physical or psychological levels. The family has thus reached a state of acute disequilibrium and is immobilized.
Family stress, on the other hand, is merely a state of changed or disturbed equilibrium. Family stress therefore is a continuous variable (degree of stress), whereas family crisis is a dichotomous variable (either in crisis or not). A crisis does not have to permanently break up the family system. It may only temporarily immobilize the family system and then lead to a different level of functioning than that experienced before the stress level escalated to the point of crisis. Many family systems, in fact, become stronger after they have experienced and recovered from crisis (Boss, 1988, Walsh, 2013b).
Coping
Family stress researchers have increasingly shifted their attention from crisis and family dysfunction to the process of coping. Researchers have become more interested in explaining why some families are better able to manage and endure stressor events rather than documenting the frequency and severity of such events (e.g., Henry et al., 2015). In terms of intervention, this represents a change from crisis intervention to prevention (Boss, 1988; McCubbin et al., 1980; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013).
The study of family coping has drawn heavily from cognitive psychology (e.g., Lazarus, 2006; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as well as sociology (e.g., Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; McCubbin, 2006). Cognitive coping strategies refer to the ways in which individual family members alter their subjective perceptions of stressful
